Opened egg too early need help

[DovesFlock]

I was taking out eggs that hadn’t hatched at day 25 because when I candled them I didn’t see any movement.

However upon opening one was still living and kicking.

I broke the membrane on accident a little but I stopped the bleeding. I’m just not sure what to do. I’ve raised humidity and I hear it peeping but I don’t know if I’ll need to help it hatch or not and when to or if I should.

I e been wetting the membrane but I don’t want to wet it too much but idk what too little looks like so please help.

 

[NatJ]

Quick advice:
--leave the egg in the incubator for now, with the raised humidity you mentioned.
--read the article on assisted hatching.
--hope that someone more knowledgeable gives a more thorough answer soon

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/guide-to-assisted-hatching-for-all-poultry.72886/

(I don't know much about assisting a hatch, so I can't advise beyond the basics I just gave.)

 

[Lillith37]

I just assisted a chick to hatch without having a proper incubator going off the aforementioned article.

The article suggests to use tweezers to gently remove the shell where the air sac is. Don’t go beyond the air sac at this point. Then use a qtip and liquid coconut oil to moisten the inner membrane. It should stay moist but you’ll see the difference and you’ll see if you need to remoisten it.

Watch the veins and the chick’s mouth. Red veins mean the chick is not yet ready to hatch. The veins will darken and recede as the chick becomes more ready. The inner membrane will become increasingly translucent. Yawning or swallowing motions of the beak indicate the yolk is being absorbed.

When the veins are receded, the membrane is see through and the chick starts butting its head/beak, it’s time for it to hatch. It may be able to break free from the egg itself or you may need to help remove more of the shell. Just take it slow and be guided by the veins and the movement of the chick.

Any bleeding just blot with paper towel, put the chick back in the incubator and wait a bit longer.

 

[DovesFlock]

I just assisted a chick to hatch without having a proper incubator going off the aforementioned article.

The article suggests to use tweezers to gently remove the shell where the air sac is. Don’t go beyond the air sac at this point. Then use a qtip and liquid coconut oil to moisten the inner membrane. It should stay moist but you’ll see the difference and you’ll see if you need to remoisten it.

Watch the veins and the chick’s mouth. Red veins mean the chick is not yet ready to hatch. The veins will darken and recede as the chick becomes more ready. The inner membrane will become increasingly translucent. Yawning or swallowing motions of the beak indicate the yolk is being absorbed.

When the veins are receded, the membrane is see through and the chick starts butting its head/beak, it’s time for it to hatch. It may be able to break free from the egg itself or you may need to help remove more of the shell. Just take it slow and be guided by the veins and the movement of the chick.

Any bleeding just blot with paper towel, put the chick back in the incubator and wait a bit longer.

I believe I upped the humidity too much. I put it around 75 80 as the membrane looked dry even though I kept wetting it. And it looked to be helping but over night as I was sleeping I guess it got ready and the humidity was too much. It didn’t ever pip but I could hear it peeping. It was close to the air cell but very wet. This info is really really helpful and I’ll keep it incase I need it for next time but hopefully I won’t have to again. Thank you so much for your help both of you!!!

 

[DovesFlock]

The chick didn’t make it and I think that was my error is what I’m saying. Probably too much humidity over night.

 

[NatJ]

The chick didn’t make it and I think that was my error is what I’m saying. Probably too much humidity over night.

It might not be entirely your fault.

Since it was 4+ days later than the chick was supposed to hatch, and it was still not ready to hatch (bled when you cracked the shell), there might have been something wrong with the chick itself. Depending on what was wrong, it might have died even if you did everything perfectly.

Did you have any chicks from this batch hatch safely?

 

[Lillith37]

From what I’ve read also, that high humidity at hatching is okay… so many things can go wrong unfortunately. I’m sorry your chick didn’t make it.

 

[DovesFlock]

It might not be entirely your fault.

Since it was 4+ days later than the chick was supposed to hatch, and it was still not ready to hatch (bled when you cracked the shell), there might have been something wrong with the chick itself. Depending on what was wrong, it might have died even if you did everything perfectly.

Did you have any chicks from this batch hatch safely?

I did have one hatch and it’s doing great lol. It hatched around day 22 and was the only other one I saw physically move (the other egg died before absorbing its yolk all the way.

It was behind though. It was as if today it could have hatched but just. Didn’t. I hope I didn’t cause that but movement was already pretty faint when I did open the shell that I’m thinking now maybe it was just too weak. It had an easy way to break out and had it’s beak right there at the membrane.

 

[NatJ]

I did have one hatch and it’s doing great lol. It hatched around day 22 and was the only other one I saw physically move (the other egg died before absorbing its yolk all the way.

It was behind though. It was as if today it could have hatched but just. Didn’t. I hope I didn’t cause that but movement was already pretty faint when I did open the shell that I’m thinking now maybe it was just too weak. It had an easy way to break out and had it’s beak right there at the membrane.

Your incubator might have been a slightly wrong temperature during all of incubation. A too-warm incubator can cause them to hatch early (obviously not a problem this time), and a too-cool incubator can cause them to hatch late (which does seem to be the case here.)

So if you do another batch, you might consider setting the incubator to a little higher temperature.

You might also want to check how accurate your thermometer is, and whether the incubator has different temperatures in different places.

 

[DovesFlock]

Your incubator might have been a slightly wrong temperature during all of incubation. A too-warm incubator can cause them to hatch early (obviously not a problem this time), and a too-cool incubator can cause them to hatch late (which does seem to be the case here.)

So if you do another batch, you might consider setting the incubator to a little higher temperature.

You might also want to check how accurate your thermometer is, and whether the incubator has different temperatures in different places.

I lowered it to 99 because my previous two batch had two eggs try and hatch too early (yolk not absorbed) at 100. I’m not sure a good temperature. I’ve checked my thermo it’s all good. But I’m doing this in a homemade inc. So idk if that also had a hand or not.

And I also only have batches of like 5 or less at this point. The highest number is the current batch at 7 eggs.
My other two batches was at 3-4 so there’s not many to hatch